al-Guardian: “Iran instigated war in Iraq”

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.
…
Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department, said: “When the story ultimately comes out we’ll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy.”

So lemme see if I’ve got this straight. Iran, looking next door to the east in late 2001 and seeing US forces running roughshod over Afghanistan, decides that having hostile troops on one side just isn’t enough? I can imagine the conversation between the mullahs back then …

Omar: “Our economy sucks and our people hate us. We need a new way to screw with The Great Satan to demonstrate the superiority of the Islamic Republic.”
Abdul: “Their troops are just over those hills there, in Afghanistan. We could call them names over a loudspeaker or something.”
Omar: “Yes, but there are only a few thousand foreign devils there. Think big.”
Mohammed: “Saddam’s been giving them headaches since ’91. Why not get the infidels to invade Iraq? Then we can watch to see who wins, and pick off the loser later.”
Omar: “Brilliant! We’ll cleverly surround ourselves with hundreds of thousands of hostile troops from the world’s only superpower, complete with swarms of high-tech aircraft and a few carrier battle groups off the coast. They will cower in fear at our terrifying longwinded speeches. At the same time, we’ll brutally repress our own people and hold a rigged parliamentary election in 2004, without any fear of a popular uprising. How can we lose?”
Jamil: “Don’t forget the WMDs, O Glorious Leader.”
Omar: “Silly me! Of course, we mustn’t forget to step up our efforts to build an IslamoNuke factory, so we can turn the Zionist Entity into a smoking crater. They’ll never strike first, the fools.”
Latifah: “Phone call, O Great Turbaned One. Ahmed Chalabi on line three.”
Omar: “Put him through. Oh, be a dear and make sure that Moqtada Al-Sadr gets a copy of our minutes … he’ll be our point man in the glorious defeat of the Great Satan’s pitiful army, so he needs to be in on our clever schemes. I’ve gotta take this call, fellas. Let’s meet again tomorrow, so we can discuss our secret plan to install a laser beam on the Moon. Inshallah.”

To get some real perspective on just how unsteady the mullahcracy in Iran is these days, read Michael Ledeen’s latest over at NRO. (Hat tip: LGF)